I'm finishing up a couple of projects, about to start another, so it's time to start thinking about the next one in queue... Printed circuit board fabrication.

I've never made any PCB's but I'm hearing at least a little interest from fellow members. I'd first like to gauge how much interest there is in the process and having a dedicated circuit board station at the HF. There's a few methods, but I'd like to keep it scalable whilst keeping it cheap and providing a learning experience for newcomers to circuits. Photosensitive boards are simple but are expensive in the long-run. Screen print and etch is cheaper if you're making a lot of boards and has other uses for TCM (shirts, stencils, labelling pcb's, etc). The cheapest is toner transfer from magazine pages using an iron, but the brother laser printer in the shop office is known to have some issues. That's part A.

Part B is SMD soldering. I've got an SMD rework station that I've been meaning to bring in, but I'd also like to use the infrared oven technique using a toaster oven and griddle I've bought new for this project. It would need a PID controller that could easily be done on an (ahhhhh!) Arduino.

A small fridge would also come in handy to preserve the chemicals needed in part A.

What do you think? Can the HF spare a few square feet of space somewhere? Hopefully not the back bathroom... Would you like to partake in this endeavor? Does the HF have any qualms about housing muriatic acid, ferric chloride, sodium hydroxide, or photo development solution? An area with water supply and drain and could be a semi-darkroom would be best.

I am definitely interested in having PCB fabrication capabilities. I have a bag of 1,997 UV LED's I ordered this spring and have a board ready in Eagle that needs to be fabricated. I was considering getting those boards produced commercially to get the ball rolling. I also have some of the Cupric Chloride etcher mixed up and it worked great in my tests last fall.

I'm willing to commit time and resources toward completing a fabrication corner. I have lots of pie-in-the-sky projects that would benefit from being able to etch a board quickly. My preference is the UV method but I will go along with whatever gets us there faster and safer.

I saw one if those commercial screen printers at Michael's yesterday on sale for 99, down from 299. This may be a good start on the PCB Fab and other screen printing capabilities @ the HF. Iirc, its about 20" square. Idk about costs of screens, contents of SP, etc. Anyone interested in splitting the cost of this? Think it's on sale for another 2 weeks...

I know this thread has been quiet/dead for a while, but figured I'd chime in.

I've made a good number of PCBs using my laserjet and a laminating machine. I still have some of the transfer paper, but I'd be interested in learning the photopaper method. I still have some etching solution and bits of single sided PCB. I'm hoping to etch a heated bed for my RepRap.

If anyone is working on PCBs shoot me a PM or something and we'll hook up.